Tuesday, April 14, 2015

My paper shame

As I drunkenly wobbled through the Internet looking for things to yell at or be dazzled by or something, I confusedly clicked on a story about how rich people in California are using all the water there.That's okay. I loathe rich people too. It's just good sense. Left to their own moral devices they do not behave well and they need our collective, steadfast moral condemnation to help them along. But my righteous indignation fell apart at the harrowing story of how they wantonly use California's precious water resources to grow their hobby rice, or wash all their tesla automobiles, or delouse their servants, or whatever. It's not that I don't think it's the usual wretched business for the rich people. It's not that I don't think they're wrong or horrible, wasteful and narcissistic. No. It's just, who am I to say? It's just, what about the paper towels?Alas it is hard for me to appear before us all in so unflattering a light! It is painful for me to so frankly confess my shame. But when it comes to me and conservationist issues it all comes back to the paper towel dispensers at the library I work at.I use roughly eight linear miles of plain, one-ply paper towels every single week that I work at the library. That's more than two leagues of paper towel! If I were to attach a paper towel end to my belt loop and walk home, dragging towel behind me, I could get there, never exhausting the towel and leaving an unbroken trail behind me.Birds could not eat all that paper towel. It's a lot of paper towel.Why am I such a savage despoiler of the environment?I could blame it on the flamboyant paper towel dispenser. It's motion sensitive, but that's a kind of an understatement. Draw near the towel dispenser and with a friendly motoring noise it rolls out a fresh foot or two of paper towel. "Towel?" It seems to winningly say."Um, thank you." I reply. There's always a use for a towel, and I don't want to seem rude, to the towel dispenser, who is being so nice and all.Plus, there aren't, surprisingly, any actual perks working at a library. I mean, there are a lot of advantages, but ever since they took away the whole "staff doesn't accrue late charges" all that's left are the towels. I carry food in them, wrap stuff in them, wipe stuff down with them, dry things with them, polish things with them, dry some more things with them, and mop my brow with them. Definitely the mopping my brow with them. It's hard work using that many towels!I am a one man deforestation machine!I don't know what to do about it. I can't help myself. Maybe if the County got us a pizza every once in awhile. A staff parking spot? A bowling alley. Free weeded items? I need something. Something.But until then I have no choice but to ball up the rain forests in the palms of my hands and avert my eyes as the rich utterly destroy the planet. Fair is fair.

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